


three days

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Death, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Silver Fox Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, This is really fluffy and really angst, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:09:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28846590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: The day begins like this:Tony is cursing, and Steve is laughing.It’s how they’ve woken up for years now, Steve’s hands cool and familiar against Tony’s belly as he crawls back into bed with his husband, and Tony’s rasping complaints just as familiar.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 44
Kudos: 196





	three days

The day begins like this: 

Tony is cursing, and Steve is laughing. 

It’s how they’ve woken up for years now, Steve’s hands cool and familiar against Tony’s belly as he crawls back into bed with his husband, and Tony’s rasping complaints just as familiar. 

“There’s coffee, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, hair wet where it falls into his eyes and Tony peers up at him through his good eye. 

It’s been decades since Thanos, since he gave his right arm and his eye and almost his life—since Extremis reversed the damage and so much of his aging and slowed down the remains. 

“We could stay in bed,” Tony bargains, and Steve grins at him, rolls them in the sheets until Tony is straddling his hips and drags him down for a kiss, hands skating over his sides. 

~*~ 

The day begins like this: 

There is silence. Cool sheets and bright sunlight. He hasn’t slept. He can’t sleep in the utter silence, and can’t bring himself to leave their bedroom either. 

There’s the scent of familiar cologne and motor oil in the air, and he can’t bring himself to leave, isn’t sure it’ll be there, if he does. 

There’s a tap on the door, and Harley comes in, trailed by Peter. 

“Hey, Pops,” Harley murmurs, hands shoved in his pockets. He’s wearing his suit, already. It’s not that strange, seeing him in a suit—Harley has been CEO long enough that seeing him wearing a suit as trim and fitted as Tony’s is familiar and comforting. 

Peter is too, though, and his eyes are wet and red-rimmed and he looks-- 

He looks like Tony did. Grey streaks his hair and his eyes are tired, his smile weaker than it used to be. 

He looks younger than Harley, and Steve wonders if that’s a curse or a blessing. Tony worried about it, about how he’d handle a long life, extended by his mutation, when his husband was gone. 

Steve blinks hard, because Tony had never considered that for them. Not when Extremis and the serum evened the playing field for them, not for _decades_ now. 

“It’s time,” Harley says, softly. 

~*~ 

The day begins like this: 

An alarm is blaring, beyond the walls of his room, and Steve jerks upright. “Report?” he barks, and there’s a brief moment of silence cut only by the klaxon. 

“Commander, they’ve asked you stay behind,” FRIDAY says. 

He snorts, and moves, all efficiency as he slips into the stealth suit. 

It needs a bit of work, but it’ll do, at least until he can get to the city. 

“What’s the situation, FRI?” he asks. 

She feeds it to the comm he never goes without, and he reaches for his shield before leaving the small, unadorned room behind. 

The halls of SHIELD are crowded, bustling with agents scurrying to answer the still screaming alarm, but they all give way, something he notes with only the barest kind of interest. 

His hair falls in his eyes and he scrapes it back impatiently, securing it at the nape of his neck. 

“Need to cut that, Stevie,” Bucky says, falling into step beside him. 

“Think you should sit this one out,” Director Bishop says as they stride into command center. Her eyes are worried and her mouth is tight and Steve smiles at her, sharply. 

“Now you know that’s not gonna happen, Katie Kate,” Bucky drawls, and because he’s looking for, Steve sees her tiny flinch. 

Even now. 

“Stark,” she says, and Steve straightens. 

“What’s the mission, Director,” he asks, implacable. 

She sighs and drags up a holoscreen. “We know he’s harnessing electricity,” she begins and he settles in. 

“This might be the one,” FRIDAY murmurs and Steve closes his eyes, and _hopes._

~*~ 

The morning goes like this: 

Tony leans against him, half asleep against his back while Steve makes eggs. The house is quiet today—just the two of them, the team confined to the Compound. He thinks about spending a little time in his studio, after breakfast. 

“I need to do some work on the prototypes Peter sent over,” Tony mumbles against his back and Steve mentally rearranges his plans. Sketching in the workshop and going over SHIELD mission reports it was. 

There were days, of course there were, when they retreated from each other, spent in their own separate corners of the house, days Tony spent in the city because even now, years after Pepper’s retirement and handing the reins to Harley and Peter, he’s active at SI. There are days when Steve goes on a mission for SHIELD with Bucky, and they don’t see each other for a week or more. 

But mostly, when they can, they spend their time together. 

“Too many years apart,” Steve murmured, when Tony asked him about it, right after they got married. 

Now, it’s habit, and comfortable, and Steve smiles does at the eggs while Tony snores against his back, and thinks about the long empty day stretching ahead of them. 

~*~ 

The day goes like this: 

They drive together, Steve and the boys who are not boys, the men who have been his sons. Morgan is waiting, with her children, and theirs, and Steve resents them, just for a moment, resents everyone here—the remains of their family and their team, Bucky and Sam, everyone standing around him and the fucking urn waiting. 

Peter speaks first. 

Because Steve—Steve loved him, loves him still, with every breath that is in him, he thinks he will love Tony until he’s dust and faded memories—but Peter was part of Tony’s soul, all his genius and sacrifice and kindness wrapped up in a boy without a speck of his blood. Peter was the son he chose, and it’s fitting, that Peter is the one speaking first, the one saying goodbye while Steve stands over an urn that feels too heavy and too light and all wrong. 

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. 

There was Extremis and the serum, there was every villain and battle they survived and all the years they fought and all the love they built despite it. 

There was a century between them and secrets and so much love he can’t quite breath through it. 

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. 

But then, he supposes. It wasn’t supposed to end at all. 

~*~ 

The day goes like this: 

The quinnjet is quiet. FRIDAY has fallen silent, but Steve knows she’s running all the information she can find, and after all the years she’s spent growing, there’s nothing she can’t find. 

Bucky sits next to him, silent, because there’s nothing to say anymore. 

The SHIELD agents and Avengers—there are Avengers, new ones, people whose names he can’t remember or doesn't want to learn, a Captain America that Sam chose that he doesn’t want to know—are quiet, a low murmur of voices and spike of laughter, but it’s been long enough that no one disturbs him and Bucky, until they’re coming up on the drop site and Scarlet Witch—not Wanda, not his team, they’re all _gone_ now—says, “Eyes up. Everyone comes home safe.” 

There’s a chorus of voices, and Bucky leans briefly into his side, and Steve’s eyes cut to his brother. 

FRIDAY is quiet in his ear and the wind whistles as the fliers take to the sky. There’s a lightening storm, just beyond the quinnjet. 

He smiles. 

“Commander Stark,” he hears, shouted, a moment before he throws himself from the jet, and Bucky follows. 

~*~ 

The day goes like this: 

The alarm comes in while Tony is scolding DUM-E, and Steve is laughing, and he grins at Steve, bright and beautiful. “Wanna save the world, honey?” 

“We’re retired,” Steve says, dryly. 

“FRIDAY, what is it? 

“A new threat, Boss. Something in space.” 

Steve shifts, uneasy, because space has never meant anything good for them, but Tony is grinning, bright eyes and eager, and he already knows how it’ll end. 

“Get your suit,” he sighs, “FRIDAY, let Hill know we’re coming in.” 

“Sure thing, Commander.” 

~*~ 

The day goes like this: 

After they scatter the ashes. 

After the family gathers and leaves-- 

After the house has gone silent, but for DUM-E's sad lonely beeping, when the lights are off and the curtains are drawn and the studio has been closed off-- 

He sits in the dark with a gun in his hand and only the thought of Tony’s disappointment in him keeps him from pulling the trigger. 

~*~ 

The day goes like this: 

The fight is brutal. The Avengers are falling in around him and Bucky, but there’s rain and the air is thick with electricity. 

Hawkeye goes down under an electric bolt from the wizard wielding it and Scarlet Witch screams his name. 

“Cap,” FRIDAY murmurs. “Wait.” 

It’s going to hell, fast, the rain and the electricity working together to blind and ground their fliers, to slow the fighters on the ground. An EMP brings down Iron Patriot with a clattering roar that almost throws him back to that fucking fight in Germany, a lifetime ago, but he grits his teeth, tenses-- 

And waits. 

It comes in waves, pulses where the wizard gather’s his power, before it’s thrown in a scattering arc, in a sharp concentrated bolt, devastating their ranks. 

“ _Now,”_ Friday snaps, and he throws himself forward. 

The last thing he hears is Bucky’s scream. 

~*~ 

The day ends like this: 

They should have stayed home. 

Where Tony was warm and grumbling and their forever stretched endless in front of them. 

They should have stayed home. 

It goes to hell, fast, faster than he can parse. The villain is an alien they’ve never faced before, and Tony’s voice is sharp and worried over the comm. 

“Cap, he’s pulling the energy of a fucking star,” Tony says. 

“A _star?”_ Steve echoes. 

“Stars are a form of energy—that's what he’s pulling.” 

“Ours?” 

Tony’s silent and Steve almost laughs, because of course they’re on a throwaway mission with a villain who wants to drain the power of their damn sun. 

“What can we do to stop him?” 

Tony is quiet, a long moment, and then--”FRIDAY, take care of him, would you? Ferryman Protocol, code echo alpha zeta tango niner.” 

The ship jerks a little, and FRIDAY says, apologetic, “Sorry, Cap. Orders.” 

“Tony,” Steve starts, but he’s flying already, the boosters on his suit bright as stars as he slams into the alien. Giant tentacles as black as the space around them snake around the suit and Tony says, softly. “I’m so sorry, beloved.” 

“Tony, come back here,” Steve begs. “Please--” 

“I wanted so badly to grow old with you, Steve,” Tony says. The suit is flying again, _pulling_ the alien with him, and Steve can’t breathe, it’s flying. “FRIDAY--don’t let him watch.” 

He screams when the ships monitor’s go black. 

He screams when an explosion rocks the ship. 

He screams when FRIDAY reports, her voice shaking with tears, “I’ve lost contact with the suit.” 

He screams and he screams, and Tony never responds. 

~*~ 

The day ends like this: 

He catches sight of himself in a mirror in the dark. It’s been almost a year since that day in space, a year of searching space and scanning for lifesigns and Peter frantically building tech to go search for Tony. 

It’s been a year of unending grief and wild baseless hope and silence that’s never answered. 

He catches sight of himself and he _breaks_ , shatters the mirror and then the table, so furious suddenly he doesn’t check himself. He finds himself in his studio, shattered easels and canvases, his pencils broken and sketchbooks torn apart, chest heaving and sobs trapped in his throat. 

He’s destroyed it, the place that Tony built for him, the place where he would sleep, while Steve sketched. 

He trembles, and says, softly, “FRIDAY. I can’t stay here.” 

“I’ll inform SHIELD you’re moving back to headquarters,” she says, and he nods. 

He takes his suit, the one that Tony made him, his shield, and a picture of Tony, saved from the ruined studio, and leaves. 

~*~ 

The day ends like this: 

Bucky carries him. 

He can’t breath, and there’s a panicky fear in his gut, shades from a boy that he hasn’t been in a lifetime. 

He can’t breath and there’s peace in it, because FRIDAY is almost purring in his ear, and Bucky is carrying him and crying and there’s a smile, strange and familiar, on his brother’s face. 

He waited. 

Even now, almost a decade after Sam’s death, Bucky waited. 

“End of the line,” Steve rasps and Bucky laughs, lowers him in the quinnjet that is dark and still. 

The Avengers that he doesn’t know, never let himself know, are behind him, silent and grim and he thinks maybe they are crying. 

He wants to tell them not to. 

He wants to tell them this is his choice. 

Bucky knows, and that is enough. FRIDAY knows, his faithful companion for all the long empty years since Tony died. 

He closes his eyes and his heartbeat falters. 

~*~ 

The day begins like this: 

He wakes and there’s a warmth, familiar and comforting, against him, and he twists. 

Tony smiles at him, impossibly young and heartbreakingly perfect, his eyes bright, and his right hand trembling as it pushes back Steve’s hair. 

“You kept me waiting a while, beloved,” he murmurs. 

Steve curls close, and Tony hums, soft and soothing and comforting, as he holds him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry.
> 
> Come yell with me on [Tumblr](https://areiton.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/areiton_)


End file.
